A pure example of the textural free-jazz inspired sound from the thick of the new wave scene of the 70s & early 80s, Idio-Savant trumpeter Paul Watson described their process being "…like a trance like state or automatic type of playing." (Milwaukee Journal, Dec.1988) Their emotionally driven, form-defying yet maturely crafted improvisations were further lauded by such institutions as the Richmond-Times Dispatch, Cadence Magazine, & Jazz Digest. A few musical configurations later, a version of Idio dubbed "Orthotonics" successfully experimented with steering the stochastic sound into a more melodic direction, complete with post-punky intellectually warped lyrics like "Too Hot to Trotsky."

The newly released Artifacts/yclept 2-disc compilation Necroscopix (1970-1981) is a simple documentary survey of a very particular time and place; a sliver of a local culture — made in imitation of, or perhaps as a salute to the work of musicologist, Dick Spottswood, one of our heroes. The best stories can’t be told in this amount of space, but here’s an outline.

“...in Richmond, or in any Southern city for that matter, you do see types now and then which depart from the norm. The South is full of eccentric characters; it still fosters individuality. And the most individualistic are of course from the land, from the out of the way places.”

— Henry Miller,“The Air-Conditioned Nightmare” (1945)

The oddest of us were, to be sure, not from the Big City, but while many here came from places like Boones Mill, Roanoke, Martinsville, Clarksville and Culpeper in Virginia, and Winston-Salem and Greensboro in North Carolina, nearly half came from the D.C. suburbs, all converging on the urban scene around the art school at Virginia Commonwealth University in the late 1960’s.

And, if the South is indeed full of “eccentric characters,” what is art school, if not a universally potent magnet for creative misfits? There isn’t a person on these two discs who ever intended to be what the Japanese call a “salary man,” and though most succeeded in that intention, some inevitably succumbed, while more than a few died resisting in their own way (see the list, please) — and others just disappeared.

Richmond is less than 100 miles from Our Nation’s Capital, which in pre-digital days was still worlds away from the major centers of the Counter Culture on the West Coast and in NYC, and that remove forced us to interpret and synthesize a take on the zeitgeist that was uniquely our own.

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Hi, man, I come to you through the homemade-lofi-psychedelic blog. I´m enjoyed a lot to hear the Karen Kooper Complex album. It´s really something unique. Now I´m hearing the The Tom and Marty Band which surprises me even more!
I will slowly hear all the albums you show here.
I wanted to show you my music because I thought it could be something for you too. I think you could get a feeling of it hearing the EP Who touched my bones?
It´s here for free download and also for online listening:
http://richardthere.bandcamp.com/
I have also a blog with my comics and music:
http://richardthere.blogspot.com/